The Secret Life of Bees is about a girl named Lily Owens who lost her mother at the young age of four. She lives with her father and Rosaleen, who is thier housekeeper and also a 'stand in mother' for Lily. This book takes place during a time in America in which racisim is very big against black people. Black people pretty much are keeped as workers in white peoples homes and work either on plantations or some other kind of farm, or they work as housekeepers. Rosaleen is a large, black, and uneducated women who works for the Owens as their housekeeper ever since Lily's mother died. Lily keeps all of the things that belonged to her mother, which is not much since her father threw most things away once she died. Her favorite item of her mothers is a picture of the virgin mary, but unlike most pictures of Mary, shes black. On the back of this is the words 'Tiburon S.C.', a town in South Carolina. Lily thinks her mother must of been there before and it is her dream to visit there. Anyway she can feel closer to her mother. Its terribly sad for Lily to think about her mothers death because she finds out that she was the one who killed her, by accident of course. Her father never really forgave her and now he is not very fatherly. Once something goes wrong, he hits and abuses Lily, and yells at her even if she did nothing wrong. One day lily and Rosaleen go into town so Rosaleen can register to vote, a very dangerous situation. On the way there Rosaleen talks ack to prejedus white men and she and Lily get taken to jail. Lilys father is furious and comes to get Lily. Meanwhile Rosaleen isi beat up and taken to a hospital. Lily takes her mothers things and goes to the hospital. She busts out Rosaleen and they head towards Tiburon, the town on the back of the virgin mary picture. Once there Lily finds a jar of honey with the same picture of Mary as she has. The store owner tells her that the honey is from a lady named August Boatwrght who lives up the road. Lily and Rosaleen go to the house and meet three black sisters, June a lady who at first doesnt like Lily, May, who has a sickness that makes her feel everything sad in the world like it happened to her best friend, and August, the maker of the honey. They are welcomed in and Lily tells the family lies about why she and Rosaleen. She counld not possibly tell them about how her and Rosaleen are runaways and how Rosaleen broke out of jail. Lily doesnt know it then but August knows this is a lie. Lily and Rosaleen stay with the Boatwrights for many weeks and become very close to them. Rosaleen comes to be very close to May. May becomes so sad sometimes. May usually starts singing 'Oh Suszanna' whenever something is sad, and so to keep her mind off things the Boatwrights had her make a prayer wall about ten years back. Whenever she becomes sad she goes out to the wall with a pad of paper and a pencil and writes down the prayer and sticks it in the wall. Lily becomes very close to August. She helps her with the bee keeping and she learns many knew things about herself and the world.The Boatwrights have a group called the Daughters of Mary. It is a religous group who get together every week at the Boatwrights home to worship. They all sit around a figure of the black virgin Mary. August has a helper with the bees named Zach, who Lily meets eight days after they have been there. He is an African-American and is around the same age as Lily, who is fourteen years old. Zach and Lily become very close friends. They work together in the honey house and after awhile lily relizes she is in love with him, and him with her. Racisim between blacks and whites does not weem to have an affect on them. August tries to get Lily to talk about why shes really at the Boatwrights house, but Lily wont say. Lily secretly wants to tell her, to ask her if she knew her mother, but she can not find the courage to do so. One day Lily and Zach head to town to drop of some honey jars and while they are there Lily calls her father from a backroom. She wants to see if he knows her favorite color just to see if he even knows one simple thing about herr, but of course he is furious, as he has been looking for her for the entire summer, and he does not know her favorite color, so Lily hangs up. Lily does not tell anyone about the call to her father. One hot day, Lily wakes up and finds May in the kitichen laying out marshmallows towards the door. She says that she is leading cockroaches out the door so they do not get hurt. This surprises Lily because her mother use to do the same thing, at least thats what her father told her. She gets up the courage and asks May if she ever knew Deborah Owens, her mother, and May answered, "Oh yes, Deborah was such a nice lady."(Kidd 117) Lily cant believe her ears, her mother had been here. Zach and Lily go into town later that day, and when they got there they saw three of Zachs friends being harassed by white men. Zach gets out and all four of the boys get blamed for throwing a bottle at one of the white men. They all get taken to jail and Lily has to end up walking home. She tells August, June, and Rosaleen what happened but nobody tells May because this would make her really sad bacause she was really close to Zach. Although, one night May found out about Zach being in prisen, she did not start singing 'Oh suszana' like she usually does. May looked really sad and said she was going to go out to the wall. August wanted to go with her, but May said that she needed to be alone. About twenty minutes later when May did not come back, August, Rosaleen, June, and Lily went looking for her. They eventually found her in the river faced with a giant rock on top of her. May had been so sad she killed herself. A few days later Zach came back and August and Lily found a note from May in the woods, a note she wrote right before she died. It talked about how it was her time to go and while you are living you should live. The note urges both August and June to live their lives to the fullest. June decides to marry a man named Neil. They have loved each other for a long time and Neil asks numerous times for June to marry him, but she always says no due to being left at the alter once in her life by a different man. Everybody mourns for May for awhile. August and Lily put black cloths over the bee hives to symbolically mourn for May. One night Lily decides she is going to tell August about her mother and tell her the story of why her and Rosaleen are there the next morning, but when Lily wakes up she August and June inform her that today is Mary Day and that they are going to bake cakes, hang lights, and pray to the Lady of Chains, during a two-day feast and festival in honor of the Assumption of Mary. The festival began at six pm, and while everyone is their, Lily relizes how much she loves the Boatwrites and their friends, and how much she is loved by them. After awhile Lily got tired of the festivites and went outside with Zach. They tell eachother how much they love eachother, but Zach tells her that he can not be with her right now becauseof the wqay things are in the world. He tells her also that one day they will be together. After Lily's talk with Zach she goes to August's room and waits for her. Once August came to her room her and Lily start to talk. August tells Lily how she new her secret identity the entire time she was here, because she looks like her mother, Deborah. Lily finds out that August worked for her mother when her mother was little. Lily also finds out the whole story of her mother. Deborah had married T-Ray and they were deeply in love. They had Lily and then things just started to be too much for Deborah, so she left Lily and T-Ray for a few months and went to live with August. She went back for Lily and was packing her stuff quickly when T-Ray came in. Deborah grabbed a gun but T-Ray took it out of her hands and set it on the floor. Then Lily, being only four and wanting to help her mother, picked up the gun and accidently shot her mother. Her father had loved Debarah so much and when she died he felt like he had nothing left in the world. He did not care about Lily anymore. After Lily's talk with August all she can think about is how her mother left her with T-Ray. The next day, after the second day of Mary's Day festivities began to slow down, August brings Lily a box of things her mother had left when she went to go and get her. Lily charished these things and now she needed time to grieve. After awhile she started to forgive her mother and started helping August with the bees again. While August and Lily were talking about Mary and how she has been standing in as a mother for Lily, August explains that the mother acts as a power inside of her, one that she can rely on when she is feeling weak or alone, sad or tired. Lily takes what August said to heart. It comes in very useful almost immediately. A few hours later, Lily answers a knock on the door, only to discover T. Ray standing there. He is very angry, but controlled, at least for the moment. Lily is alone in the house, except for T-Ray. He starts yelling at Lily as if she were Deborah. Lily yelled at him calling him Daddy and telling hem to stop. He stops yelling and then tells Lily she is coming home with him. Lily says no, that she wants to stay here, that she likes it here. Then walks in August and she tells T-Ray that Lily can stay as long as she wants. T-Ray agrees then leaves. As he is pulling out of the driveway, Lily yells at him to stop and she asks him who really shot her mother, and he tells her that she shot her mother. In the end Lily stays with the Boatwrights, she even forgives her mother, and now she finally realizes how much she is loved.
Why Read This Book?
This is by far one of the best books I have EVER read. It's about a girl finding herself, about racisim and how to overcome it, a love stroy, and it has symbolism. The bees in this story symbolize that everyone has to work together. The queen bee is the ruler over every single bee, according to August, the Virgin Mary is the mother of all the women she is close to.
Citiations
Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees. New York: New York, 2002. The Secret Life of Bees. 26 Jan. 2006 <www.collier.k12.fl.us/ nhs/lmc/bees.jpg>
The Secret Life of Bees
By: Sue Monk KiddSummary
The Secret Life of Bees is about a girl named Lily Owens who lost her mother at the young age of four. She lives with her father and Rosaleen, who is thier housekeeper and also a 'stand in mother' for Lily. This book takes place during a time in America in which racisim is very big against black people. Black people pretty much are keeped as workers in white peoples homes and work either on plantations or some other kind of farm, or they work as housekeepers. Rosaleen is a large, black, and uneducated women who works for the Owens as their housekeeper ever since Lily's mother died. Lily keeps all of the things that belonged to her mother, which is not much since her father threw most things away once she died. Her favorite item of her mothers is a picture of the virgin mary, but unlike most pictures of Mary, shes black. On the back of this is the words 'Tiburon S.C.', a town in South Carolina. Lily thinks her mother must of been there before and it is her dream to visit there. Anyway she can feel closer to her mother. Its terribly sad for Lily to think about her mothers death because she finds out that she was the one who killed her, by accident of course. Her father never really forgave her and now he is not very fatherly. Once something goes wrong, he hits and abuses Lily, and yells at her even if she did nothing wrong. One day lily and Rosaleen go into town so Rosaleen can register to vote, a very dangerous situation. On the way there Rosaleen talks ack to prejedus white men and she and Lily get taken to jail. Lilys father is furious and comes to get Lily. Meanwhile Rosaleen isi beat up and taken to a hospital. Lily takes her mothers things and goes to the hospital. She busts out Rosaleen and they head towards Tiburon, the town on the back of the virgin mary picture. Once there Lily finds a jar of honey with the same picture of Mary as she has. The store owner tells her that the honey is from a lady named August Boatwrght who lives up the road. Lily and Rosaleen go to the house and meet three black sisters, June a lady who at first doesnt like Lily, May, who has a sickness that makes her feel everything sad in the world like it happened to her best friend, and August, the maker of the honey. They are welcomed in and Lily tells the family lies about why she and Rosaleen. She counld not possibly tell them about how her and Rosaleen are runaways and how Rosaleen broke out of jail. Lily doesnt know it then but August knows this is a lie. Lily and Rosaleen stay with the Boatwrights for many weeks and become very close to them. Rosaleen comes to be very close to May. May becomes so sad sometimes. May usually starts singing 'Oh Suszanna' whenever something is sad, and so to keep her mind off things the Boatwrights had her make a prayer wall about ten years back. Whenever she becomes sad she goes out to the wall with a pad of paper and a pencil and writes down the prayer and sticks it in the wall. Lily becomes very close to August. She helps her with the bee keeping and she learns many knew things about herself and the world.The Boatwrights have a group called the Daughters of Mary. It is a religous group who get together every week at the Boatwrights home to worship. They all sit around a figure of the black virgin Mary. August has a helper with the bees named Zach, who Lily meets eight days after they have been there. He is an African-American and is around the same age as Lily, who is fourteen years old. Zach and Lily become very close friends. They work together in the honey house and after awhile lily relizes she is in love with him, and him with her. Racisim between blacks and whites does not weem to have an affect on them. August tries to get Lily to talk about why shes really at the Boatwrights house, but Lily wont say. Lily secretly wants to tell her, to ask her if she knew her mother, but she can not find the courage to do so. One day Lily and Zach head to town to drop of some honey jars and while they are there Lily calls her father from a backroom. She wants to see if he knows her favorite color just to see if he even knows one simple thing about herr, but of course he is furious, as he has been looking for her for the entire summer, and he does not know her favorite color, so Lily hangs up. Lily does not tell anyone about the call to her father. One hot day, Lily wakes up and finds May in the kitichen laying out marshmallows towards the door. She says that she is leading cockroaches out the door so they do not get hurt. This surprises Lily because her mother use to do the same thing, at least thats what her father told her. She gets up the courage and asks May if she ever knew Deborah Owens, her mother, and May answered, "Oh yes, Deborah was such a nice lady."(Kidd 117) Lily cant believe her ears, her mother had been here. Zach and Lily go into town later that day, and when they got there they saw three of Zachs friends being harassed by white men. Zach gets out and all four of the boys get blamed for throwing a bottle at one of the white men. They all get taken to jail and Lily has to end up walking home. She tells August, June, and Rosaleen what happened but nobody tells May because this would make her really sad bacause she was really close to Zach. Although, one night May found out about Zach being in prisen, she did not start singing 'Oh suszana' like she usually does. May looked really sad and said she was going to go out to the wall. August wanted to go with her, but May said that she needed to be alone. About twenty minutes later when May did not come back, August, Rosaleen, June, and Lily went looking for her. They eventually found her in the river faced with a giant rock on top of her. May had been so sad she killed herself. A few days later Zach came back and August and Lily found a note from May in the woods, a note she wrote right before she died. It talked about how it was her time to go and while you are living you should live. The note urges both August and June to live their lives to the fullest. June decides to marry a man named Neil. They have loved each other for a long time and Neil asks numerous times for June to marry him, but she always says no due to being left at the alter once in her life by a different man. Everybody mourns for May for awhile. August and Lily put black cloths over the bee hives to symbolically mourn for May. One night Lily decides she is going to tell August about her mother and tell her the story of why her and Rosaleen are there the next morning, but when Lily wakes up she August and June inform her that today is Mary Day and that they are going to bake cakes, hang lights, and pray to the Lady of Chains, during a two-day feast and festival in honor of the Assumption of Mary. The festival began at six pm, and while everyone is their, Lily relizes how much she loves the Boatwrites and their friends, and how much she is loved by them. After awhile Lily got tired of the festivites and went outside with Zach. They tell eachother how much they love eachother, but Zach tells her that he can not be with her right now becauseof the wqay things are in the world. He tells her also that one day they will be together. After Lily's talk with Zach she goes to August's room and waits for her. Once August came to her room her and Lily start to talk. August tells Lily how she new her secret identity the entire time she was here, because she looks like her mother, Deborah. Lily finds out that August worked for her mother when her mother was little. Lily also finds out the whole story of her mother. Deborah had married T-Ray and they were deeply in love. They had Lily and then things just started to be too much for Deborah, so she left Lily and T-Ray for a few months and went to live with August. She went back for Lily and was packing her stuff quickly when T-Ray came in. Deborah grabbed a gun but T-Ray took it out of her hands and set it on the floor. Then Lily, being only four and wanting to help her mother, picked up the gun and accidently shot her mother. Her father had loved Debarah so much and when she died he felt like he had nothing left in the world. He did not care about Lily anymore. After Lily's talk with August all she can think about is how her mother left her with T-Ray. The next day, after the second day of Mary's Day festivities began to slow down, August brings Lily a box of things her mother had left when she went to go and get her. Lily charished these things and now she needed time to grieve. After awhile she started to forgive her mother and started helping August with the bees again. While August and Lily were talking about Mary and how she has been standing in as a mother for Lily, August explains that the mother acts as a power inside of her, one that she can rely on when she is feeling weak or alone, sad or tired. Lily takes what August said to heart. It comes in very useful almost immediately. A few hours later, Lily answers a knock on the door, only to discover T. Ray standing there. He is very angry, but controlled, at least for the moment. Lily is alone in the house, except for T-Ray. He starts yelling at Lily as if she were Deborah. Lily yelled at him calling him Daddy and telling hem to stop. He stops yelling and then tells Lily she is coming home with him. Lily says no, that she wants to stay here, that she likes it here. Then walks in August and she tells T-Ray that Lily can stay as long as she wants. T-Ray agrees then leaves. As he is pulling out of the driveway, Lily yells at him to stop and she asks him who really shot her mother, and he tells her that she shot her mother. In the end Lily stays with the Boatwrights, she even forgives her mother, and now she finally realizes how much she is loved.
Why Read This Book?
This is by far one of the best books I have EVER read. It's about a girl finding herself, about racisim and how to overcome it, a love stroy, and it has symbolism. The bees in this story symbolize that everyone has to work together. The queen bee is the ruler over every single bee, according to August, the Virgin Mary is the mother of all the women she is close to.
Citiations
Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees. New York: New York, 2002.The Secret Life of Bees. 26 Jan. 2006 <www.collier.k12.fl.us/ nhs/lmc/bees.jpg>